JPS637822B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an automatic centrifugal dehydration device, and in particular, it is capable of simultaneously drying a large number of objects to be dehydrated, such as semiconductor wafers and glass dry plates, by centrifugal dehydration, and also allows easy loading and unloading of the objects to be dehydrated into the device. This relates to an automatic centrifugal dehydration device that automates the process. As is well known, IC, transistor,
Semiconductors such as thyristors are manufactured by repeatedly subjecting circular wafers to diffusion, photolithography, and other processes, and each of these processes includes numerous washings and drying steps. Usually, for this drying, a plastic cassette 1 is used, as shown in FIG. 1, and the wafers 3 are stored between a plurality of parallel grooves 2 formed in this cassette. I'm trying to process it in batches. FIG. 2 shows an outline of a conventional centrifugal dehydrator used for this drying. That is,
A chamber 4, which serves as the main outer casing of the device, is supported on a base plate 5 via a cushion 6, and a lid plate 7 with a packing 8 that can be opened and closed is provided at the upper opening of the chamber 4. A rotating shaft 11 is supported by bearings 10 through a housing 9 fixed to the center bottom of the housing 9 . Further, on the mounting plate 13 fixed to the upper end of the rotating shaft 11 with bolts 12, a pair or more basket holders 14 are welded at symmetrical positions, and a pin 16 is attached to each basket holder 14. A basket 15 which can be raised and lowered freely around the center and which can be held in a fixed position by a stopper 17.
is provided. Therefore, when a large number of washed wafers 3 are stored in the cassette 1, and the cassette 1 is loaded into each basket 15 and rotated by a motor (not shown), the wafers 3 are stuck to the cassette 1 and the wafers 3. Moisture is shaken off and dried by the centrifugal force that accompanies the rotation, and the scattered moisture travels along the inner wall of the chamber 4 and is drained to the outside through a suitable drain hole provided at the bottom. It will be done. However, in such a conventional centrifugal dehydrator, the object to be dehydrated, in this case the cassette 1 containing the wafers 3, is loaded and unloaded into the centrifugal dehydrator manually. Moreover, as this drying process is repeated many times as described above, it is not only quite time-consuming, but also generally requires that wafers of this type be dried without delay after being washed with water.
At this time as well, manual loading and unloading was a problem. This invention improves these conventional drawbacks and
This automates the loading and unloading of cassettes into the device. An embodiment of the automatic centrifugal dewatering apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4. FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the entire device according to this embodiment;
FIG. 4 is a longitudinal sectional view of the same as above. In each of these figures, the dewatering mechanism 30 has a chamber 31 provided with a cover plate 32 that can be opened and closed, and this chamber 31 is appropriately supported by a base plate 33, and a housing 34 fixed to the center bottom of the chamber 31. Bearings 35, 3
5, a rotating shaft 36 is penetrated and supported, and can be rotated at high speed via a V-pulley 37 by a high-speed rotation motor (not shown). Further, a mounting plate 38 is fixed to the upper end of the rotating shaft 36 with bolts, and one or more pairs of basket holders 39 and 40 are welded to symmetrical positions on the mounting plate 38. For each basket holder 39, 40, a basket 4 is provided which can be freely raised and lowered around pins 43, 44 and can be held in a fixed position by stoppers 45, 46.
1, 42 are arranged, each basket 41 , 42
There are support plates 47 for holding the cassettes 1 respectively.
a to 47c, 48a to 48c, and backing plates 49, 5
0 is provided. Further, on one side and the other side of the chamber 31, loader and unloader operating mechanisms 51 and 52 are provided. Each of these operating mechanisms 51 and 52 is composed of air cylinders 53 and 54 and push-up rods 55 and 56 that are operated by the air cylinders 53 and 54, respectively.
By this operation, the tips of the push-up rods 55, 56 push up the abutting plates 49, 50, and the baskets 41 , 42 can be moved to the receiving position, for example, as shown by chain lines in the figure. Furthermore, in order to position and stop each of the baskets 41 and 42 at the position of each of the operating mechanisms 51 and 52 , an indexing mechanism 57 is provided around the rotating shaft 36.
will be provided. This indexing mechanism 57 has cutouts 59 and 59 corresponding to the positions of the baskets 41 and 42 , respectively.
60, the index plate 58 is keyed and fixed onto the rotating shaft 36, and a roller 6 that can be engaged with each notch 59, 60 is provided.
3 and 64, and positioning arms 61 and 62 which are engaged and actuated by an air cylinder (not shown) are disposed, and an electromagnetic clutch 65 is mounted on the rotating shaft 36.
A V-pulley 66 is provided, and the rotary shaft 36 can be rotated at a low speed by a low-speed rotation motor (not shown) in addition to the above-mentioned high-speed rotation. Furthermore, loader and unloader conveyors 67 and 68 are provided on the sides of the chamber 31 corresponding to the respective operating mechanisms 51 and 52 , respectively. These conveyors 67 and 68 are for transporting the cassette 1 from the pre-processing device to the dewatering mechanism and from the dewatering mechanism to the post-processing device, respectively, and are provided with rollers 69 to 72, respectively.
and belts 73, 74 that span these. Furthermore, each of these conveyors 6
A transfer mechanism 75 is provided between 7 and 68 . This transfer mechanism 75 includes a feed screw rod 77 that is reversibly rotated by a reversible rotation motor 76, a guide rod 78 parallel to this feed screw rod 77, an arm 79 that is engaged with these, and this arm 79. It consists of an air cylinder 80 and its feed claw 81 located at the tip of each conveyor 67 , 68 , and cooperates with each conveyor 67 , 68 to move the cassette 1 on the conveyor 67 to the basket 41 or 42, or the cassettes 1 on the baskets 41 or 42 are transferred to the conveyor 68 , respectively. Therefore, in the configuration of the embodiment described above, first, the cassettes 1 each containing the wafers 3 which have been washed with water in the pre-processing device are appropriately placed on the loader conveyor 67 and put on standby. At this point, the electromagnetic clutch 65 is actuated to drive a low-speed rotation motor (not shown) to rotate the rotary shaft 36, and at the same time, the positioning arm 61 is actuated to press the roller 63 against the outer periphery of the index plate 58. In this state, when the notch 59 of the index plate 58 comes to the position of the roller 63, the roller 63 is engaged with the notch 59, and the motor is stopped to position the rotating shaft 36 at the rotation angle position. At this time, since the notch 59 corresponds to one of the baskets 41 , this basket 41 is positioned in line with the loader conveyor 67 and the operating mechanism 51 , and when the operating mechanism 51 is operated there, the push-up rod Plate 4 by 55
9 is pushed up, and the basket 41 is erected up to a 90° position around the pin 43 and is ready to receive. Subsequently, the feed claw 81 of the transfer mechanism 75 is projected downward from the air cylinder 80, and the reversible rotary motor 7
6, the feed claw 81 starts to operate by the feed screw rod 77, and at the same time, the belt 73 of the loader conveyor 67 starts to drive, and the conveyor 7
As the conveyor 73 is driven, the cassette 1 on the top 3 is pushed by the feed claw 81 and transferred onto the waiting basket 41 . Then, after returning the feed claw 81, basket 41 , push-up rod 55, and positioning arm 61 to their original positions, the same operation is repeated again to transfer the next cassette 1 to another basket 42 . After accommodating the cassettes in all the baskets, the lid plate 32 closes the chamber 3.
1 is hermetically sealed, a high-speed rotation motor (not shown) is driven to apply high-speed rotation to the rotating shaft 36, and eventually to each of the baskets 41 and 42 , thereby centrifuging the wafers 3 in each cassette 1 accommodated in each. Dehydrate. Note that the time until centrifugal dehydration may be appropriately set using a timer or the like, and the wafer 3 is dehydrated and dried in this manner. After dehydration and drying, in the same manner as described above, each basket 41 , 42 is indexed to the unloader side by the indexing mechanism 57 , raised up by the operating mechanism 52 , and then moved to the transfer mechanism 75 and the unloader conveyor. 68 , each basket 41 , 4
cassette 1 on 2, i.e. dried wafers 3
The cassettes 1 each containing the materials are taken out and sent to the post-processing device one after another. In the above embodiments, each mechanism may have any configuration as long as it can achieve the given purpose, and semiconductor wafers were taken as an example of the object to be dehydrated, but other mechanisms may be used. Of course, it can also be applied to. As described in detail above, according to the present invention, the transfer mechanism and the loader/unloader operating mechanism automatically transfer the cassettes containing the objects to be dehydrated from the conveyor to the baskets supported in the chamber in a freely undulating manner. It can be loaded or unloaded, and furthermore, by means of an actuation mechanism and a stopper,
The basket can be raised and lowered to the appropriate state when loading or unloading cassettes and during centrifugal dehydration, and the basket can be held in a fixed position face down inside the chamber during rotation, so dehydration and drying work can be done automatically. can be carried out, and
Since it is equipped with a conveyor for a loader and an unloader, and a moving mechanism, it has the effect of enabling a series of operations of each step of pre-treatment, dehydration and drying, and post-treatment. In addition, if the object to be dehydrated is a flat plate-shaped object, when storing the object to be dehydrated in a cassette, raise the basket so that the surface of the flat plate is parallel to the axis of rotation, and during centrifugal dehydration, turn the basket upside down. Since the plane of the flat plate can be made perpendicular to the rotation axis, it is easy to store the material to be dehydrated in the cassette, and moreover, centrifugal dehydration can be performed effectively.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a semiconductor wafer as an example of an object to be dehydrated and a cassette containing the wafer;
FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing a conventional centrifugal dewatering apparatus, FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing the overall structure of an embodiment of the automatic centrifugal dehydrating apparatus according to the present invention, and FIG. 4 is a longitudinal sectional view of the same. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Cassette, 3...Wafer, 30 ...Dehydration mechanism, 31...Chamber, 32...Lid plate, 34...
...Housing, 36... Rotating shaft, 39, 40...
Basket holder, 41 , 42 ...Basket,
43,44...Pin, 45,46...Stoppa,
49, 50... Back plate, 51 , 52 ... Operating mechanism for loader and unloader, 53, 54... Air cylinder, 55, 56... Push-up rod, 57 ...
... Indexing mechanism, 58... Indexing plate, 59, 60...
...Notch, 61, 62...Positioning arm, 63,
64...roller, 65...electromagnetic clutch, 67 ,
68... Conveyor for loader and unloader, 7
3,74...Belt, 75 ...Transfer mechanism, 76...
...Reversible rotary motor, 77...Feed screw rod, 78
... Guide rod, 79 ... Arm, 80 ... Air cylinder, 81 ... Feed claw.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A rotating shaft supported by a bearing at the center bottom of the chamber, at least one pair of baskets supported within the chamber by a basket holder at the upper end of the rotating shaft so as to be freely undulating, and a stopper for holding the baskets in a face down position within the chamber. a dewatering mechanism having a dewatering mechanism; a loader and unloader operating mechanism disposed at the loader and unloader positions of the chamber for pushing each of the baskets out of the chamber and holding them in an upright position; an indexing mechanism for indexing, positioning and stopping, and an indexing mechanism disposed on the outer periphery of the loader and unloader positions of the chamber, with respect to the basket in which a flat object to be dehydrated stored upright in a cassette is held in an upright position. An automatic centrifugal dewatering device characterized by being equipped with a loader for loading and unloading, a conveyor for an unloader, and a transfer mechanism.